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Walking the Walk on Blistered Feet

No matter how angry or sad I am, seeing something magical like this cuts through everything and gives me a moment of awe. Nature is a healer.

I don’t want to be writing this right now.

I don’t believe it’s helpful or worthwhile or interesting.

But I’ve also come to recognize the signs that my brain is lying to me, so I’m here anyway.

This is me walking the walk.

I am tired y’all.

Mentally, physically and in any other capacity that can be fatigued, I am tired.

There is so much ugliness in the world right now. There’s always been a lot, but lately it seems like it’s coming to a head.

And we all know that putrid boil of pestilence must be lanced somehow but none of us are quite sure how. Or when. But we know it will be messy and the anticipation is exhausting.

I suppose I should stop saying “we” since I can only speak for myself, but there is a cacophonous chorus of pain rising up all around me that harmonizes eerily with my own lonesome melody of grief and yet somehow I still feel alone.

I’m not.

But that’s the thing about depression. You can be surrounded, even by people you love, but you find yourself trapped by connection-proof glass. Silenced by all the ineffectual words clogging your throat. Knowing there’s nothing you can say…not so much to make someone understand, because unfortunately I think many of you do understand how this feels, but to bring someone into your haunted heart with you to help keep it beating.

You have to do that alone.

Perhaps you’re realizing now “oh…this isn’t one of those funny posts, is it?” and maybe you want to back away slowly. I get it.

I was planning on writing a post about all the slapstick bullshit that has knocked me down lately. A comedy of injuries and small injustices tripping me up like some relentless middle school bully.

I really was trying to laugh about it all.

But it’s taken its toll on me. I’ll be fine. But that’s not the space I’m writing from today.

The important thing is, I’m writing.

I’ve had some minor emergencies lately that have not left room for negotiation. This meant I had to push my body to a point I knew I would suffer for.

This is what the fallout looks like.

My heart is heavy. It literally struggles to move my blood. It does that sometimes, loses the beat entirely, gets sluggish, forgets why it was dancing in the first place.

I have no words to express how much I didn’t want to write when I started, but it’s getting easier as I go.

My thoughts are thawing into a flow. Giving my mind time to gather itself while my fingers remember the keys, usually does the trick.

This is me, returning to my breath-work of creating. Just making words until they make sense. Knowing they won’t at first and trusting the process.

This time of year is always a struggle for me. I have heat intolerance that causes migraines, rashes, exhaustion if I’m out in weather over 80 degrees. This does not pair well with summer in Denver. I know it’s not as bad as some places, but it’s bad enough for me and it has left me as limp and ineffectual as piece of lettuce in a hot dumpster. (Which is kind of what the city feels like to me lately.)

The batteries on every source of hope I try to plug into seem…low. And that aforementioned song of sorrow sometimes seems to drown out everything else.

But that doesn’t mean that everything else isn’t still there.

I get glimpses. Like the swallowtail pictured above that visited my yard in one of the rare moments cool enough that I could be outside.

Please understand that I’m not saying: “World got you down? Here’s a pretty butterfly! All better now!”

I’m just saying that even when things are bleak, there are usually moments of sweetness.

No matter how sad I am, seeing something like this enormous swallowtail drinking from my orange rose yanks an utterly sincere and involuntary grin from me.

That means that joy still lives in me. I’m still capable of feeling it. Which means I’m still alive. Which means I’ll keep making things.

They say you’re either motivated by love or fear, but I think, like most things, it’s more complicated than that.

I’m motivated by love and fear. Often simultaneously. They’re two sides of the same coin, after all. When I’m truly afraid, it always comes down to the thought of losing something or someone I love.

So when I talk about the importance of creating (almost) every day, I’m reminding myself and when I sit down to write when I don’t feel like it, yes, it’s out of love. But also, fear.

Fear…of this.

Fear of staying away from my creative center for so long that it no longer feels like home when I come back.

I have this low level of anxiety running in the background any time I’m not doing something creative. Just flashing off to the side like a “check engine” light, nibbling at the corners of my brain.

If I ignore it long enough, I will stall out.

And here we are.

When I go too long without writing, I’m not grounded. I feel as if my life is happening without me. And the longer I go, the harder it is to get back.

It’s been awhile since I’ve gone this long without writing, so I hardly remember what it was like to have such a violent twist of dread in my chest at the thought of it.

But I remember the feeling so vividly that it brings me right back to times in my life that were too dark to write by.

Out of desperation I’ve learned to write my way out of the dark by feel. Even with my eyes closed I know the shape of letters. I can almost always keep writing…

Unfortunately sometimes life dictates that you really can’t.

For a few days last week, I truly didn’t have a choice. I was not going to get the chance to create anything. And usually going a few days is okay. Not ideal, but okay.

But then…I had some chances to write but I just felt tired of words. This happens to me occasionally, which might be surprising from such a verbose bitch as I, but as a dyslexic¹, sometimes big ol blocks of words are just painful to look at. But more than that, lately it seems like everyone is talking shit and not getting anywhere and I just want it all to shut up.

I often turn to making music in times like this and sometimes I actually think in music, which is a relief, but the only form of self-expression I’ve felt drawn to lately is screaming into a pillow.

I crave quieting my mind by working with my hands, which is a good thing I guess since everything in my house decided to break at once and I am the official groundskeeper and fixer of all the things.

There are enough broken things to keep my hands busy for the rest of my life, which is dangerous, because it means I can productively avoid being creative for as long as I “want”.

I don’t want to avoid it. But it’s so easy for “a few days” to become a week to become two weeks…

Today, again, I had a choice. I could have skipped writing this. I have plenty of reasonable excuses. I’m not doing too well. I think that would be forgiven.

But that’s why it’s so important for me to remember that I don’t do this to be “good”. To impress anyone, or (bwahahaha) make money.

I do this because it is medicine.

Even if I don’t believe it can fix a single thing going on in the world, I know it helps “fix” me.

I feel better now than I have all week. That matters.

You still gotta take your meds even when the world is on fire, right?

But the longer I wait, the harder it’s going to feel. So, better to pick up the pen, the brush, the guitar as soon as possible.

Because life is fucking hard enough, isn’t it?

Take care of yourselves, my friends. And if you do have a choice, make something. It helps.

Love and Hisses,

K

1. Being dyslexic can be quite entertaining though. I often mix up words from different lines of text. Recently I muted yet another pharmaceutical add on tv and glancing at the list of side-effects, I thought I’d spotted a new one: Suicidal Diarrhea. Which gave me a laugh and maybe a new name for my band.